As the French evacuated Paris in June 1940, amateur filmmakers documented the exodus as thousands lined the roads with their families and most precious possessions. As the British sifted through the rubble, people grabbed cameras to capture what it meant to stand up to Hitler throughout the Blitz. And as the Nazi army slogged through the mud and snow of Soviet Russia on the way to Moscow, soldiers used 8mm cameras to film the hardships of the war as they experienced it. This was not the stock, newsreel or propaganda footage from World War II that authorities approved and audiences became accustomed to seeing. This was provocative and sometimes disturbing footage taken by those who witnessed the war first-hand. This was the footage deemed ‘unfit’ for civilians to see. At the end of the war, this and other “Top Secret” footage of the war’s destruction was stashed away and forgotten.